Willy Russell, 62, is best known for Blood Brothers, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine. One of the longest-running musicals in the West End, Blood Brothers won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1983, and its 1988 production is still running. Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine were both awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, in 1980 and 1988 respectively. Both plays were made into successful films, and are currently running as part of the Willy Russell season at Trafalgar Studios in London (until October 30). Our Day Out – The Musical, which first aired in 1977 as a television play, is at the Liverpool Royal Court Theatre from August 27 to October 9 (willyrussell.com). He lives in Liverpool with his wife, Annie.

Morning routine I am usually up before 8am. Breakfast is a couple of slices of toast and Marmite with pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top. Pumpkin seeds are very good for the prostate – all men should eat them every day. Mostly I drive the six miles to my office in the centre of town, which is a Georgian house I started renting in 1984 and bought in 1999. When I am on a heavy-duty keep-fit regime, I’ll walk halfway and then get on a bus. I started doing that when they gave me 'twirly’ status two years ago. 'Twirly’ comes from when pensioners used to turn up at 9.20am to get on a bus using their bus pass, only to be told, 'You’re too early.’

Earliest memory I’m not sure how old I was, but I was young enough to be carried out of my uncle Stan’s wedding reception for screaming because I wasn’t allowed to have any wine. Everyone else had this red stuff and they wouldn’t let me have any. I’m still trying to make up for it – drinking wine is one of life’s great delights.

Mistaken identity Over the years I have often been mistaken for Alan Bleasdale, who is a friend, and the authorship of our work is always getting mixed up. Two girls once stopped Alan and said, 'Aren’t you the fella who wrote Educating Willy?’ When Alan’s Boys from the Black Stuff was on, I was in a restaurant and the waiter brought a huge brandy to the table and said it was from the manager, with regards to Boys from the Black Stuff. Two years ago I sent Alan a cutting from the Liverpool Echo – a picture of him captioned Willy Russell – and in return he sent me the poster (pictured) from a show we did together in 1984 titled Willy Bleasdale, Alan Russell & Friends.

Composing Generally I use the piano and guitar for composition. Very occasionally I will start with melody. I did a song in Blood Brothers called Long Sunday Afternoon that started as pure melody, but I had to get to a guitar fast to work out the chords. I taught myself to play guitar when I was 14, after I saw the Beatles at the Cavern for the first time, which was intoxicating. They were like Martians walking on to the stage, dressed all in black with their hair combed forward. Nobody apart from sad kids at school whose dads cut their hair with a pudding basin looked like that. I knew then that life had changed.

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Beginnings I was a ladies’ hairdresser for five years after I left school (with only one O-level), and I met Annie when I was 19. She was a teacher, and it was because of her I decided to go back to education. In those days mature students were unheard of, and a more alien concept was a guy joining the girls’ typing class, as I did. I knew I wanted to be a writer and Annie bought me my first typewriter (pictured) at that time. With it I wrote John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, my play about the Beatles, and the first script of Educating Rita.

Question always asked I am often asked where I get my ideas from. I am always at great pains to point out that an idea is just an idea – it’s an ambition or intention. The assumption is that you have an idea and that’s it, but really it is just the beginning of a possibly long process. By the time I’ve got that far in the answer, though, the questioner usually has a glazed expression on their face. There is an essay on my website titled Where Do I Get My Ideas From?, so perhaps I should just direct them to that in future.

Writing It is a nightmare. I often begin work, but only ever finish something if I have to deliver to a deadline. When I’m tied to the deadline, I get more and more frantic, terrified, confused and frustrated, until finally I get to the point where instead of trying to write the greatest piece of work that was ever written, I’m forced into the situation of writing a piece of work that has to be delivered. The deadline takes away the responsibility for the masterpiece.

Useful resources My father in-law, in whose library I wrote Educating Rita, gave me a rhyming dictionary (pictured) in 1968, but I haven’t found a rhyme in it to this day. Sometimes I’ll exhaust everything I can come up with to rhyme with a word and then I’ll check it to make sure there is not something out of the reach of my mind that I’ve missed. What it is most useful for is quickly establishing that there is not a rhyme for something. One need never look for a rhyme for 'orange’ or 'month’, for example.

Personalised lyrics I was invited to Scotland by Paul McCartney in the mid-1970s because he was interested in making a film with Wings and wanted me to see if I could come up with a plot, which I did but it didn’t go ahead in the end. It was when they were recording Back to the Egg and I asked Paul for a set of lyrics to work with. He wrote me a longhand description of the album and the lyrics of each track (pictured), which is a lovely thing to have, and hilariously he calls me Woolly Rissole throughout.

Cigarette box I keep my wooden cigarette box (pictured) on display to remind me how glad I am that I don’t smoke any more. I gave up a more-than-40-a-day habit in 1999 after I was wheeled into intensive care having suffered a heart attack. I have a recurring dream that I have taken up smoking again and when I wake up it always takes a second or two for me to realise I’ve been dreaming.